Without Darkness There Can Be No Light
by Antigone2
Summary: A different future, a haunted past, choices and regrets...


AN.  
All I did was rewrite this a little.

The story itself was written a long time ago.

I didn't change anything with the plot.

I tried to make the prose less purple, now it's more like idk a lighter shade of purple but it's the best I could do.

Please direct all negative comments to a decade ago.

I'm sorry for my life.

* * *

Without Darkness, There Can Be No Light.

An oppressing silence stretched over the crystal courtyard, as the girl stood, head high, eyes strong beneath their tears, her shorn auburn hair fluttering in the slight breeze. King Endymion of Earth stood about a hundred feet in front of her, above the courtyard, surrounded by the senshi and his bodyguards.

He wasn't far enough away from the girl not to sense her fear, her desperate thoughts, and most strongly, her sharp loathing of him. The hatred she felt surged through him, in his veins, and he welcomed it and agreed with it. Yes, he agreed with her completely. But that would not impede her death.

"Megumi Iwaski, you are sentenced to High Treason to the Crown of Earth, Unauthorized Assembly, and Planning to Overthrow the Government in a Violent or Illegal Manner. Do you repent?" Mars' voice rang over the silent onlookers and caused the girl to narrow her eyes.

Jupiter stood second when Megumi didn't answer. "You are aware that if you repent it will not effect your punishment now, but will ensure a proper burial and rights to your remaining family." It was impossible to hear any emotion in Jupiter's voice, to decipher how she felt about this punishment. But then again, perhaps she felt nothing. Emotion had long ago been burnt out of the senshi, it seemed.

King Endymion watched the girl struggle with the binds that held her to the crystal spire. Her young age suddenly became apparent behind the murky green of her eyes. She may have been beautiful once, perhaps she still was,  
he had no idea. He never saw beauty in anything anymore.

"Do you repent?" Jupiter repeated her question.

Megumi spat in return, her eyes narrowed, her face a mask of anger.

The king gave the signal.

The spire pulsed with energy.

And the girl screamed.

It was over in a second, less than a second, and her lifeless body hung limp on the spire. The guards were just walking forward when a shout ensued from the crowd. The senshi gasped and jumped us as suddenly a band of armed men and women stormed the courtyard. Chaos erupted and the senshi jumped into the fight amongst the screams and running, scattering people. Swords clashed, power swirled and punches rang. They carried no guns.

The guards by the spire were knocked out cold and taken down, and a figure jumped onto the dais on which the tall structure rested. The band of people stopped their onslaught and watched, the crowd watched, and the king  
stood, his dark hazel eyes taking in the scene.

The young man hurriedly untied Megumi, and cradled her in his arms, murmuring something softly. They watched as he pressed his fingers to her wrist, her mouth, her neck, each time panic growing in his features.

He looked up suddenly, mouth hanging open, disbelief and grief spiraling though him and around him binding him with thorns and darkness and helplessness. Pain.

They came too late to rescue her.

"No!" he cried. Head thrown back, her name tore from his throat again and again. Fists clenched, lungs palpitated, pulse raced, and mind churned. Endymion felt it, felt it from the young man. But he didn't cringe. These feelings couldn't touch him anymore.

Pain. Hatred. The young man's bottle-green eyes fell on the king, sharp and focused. His utter loathing filled him completely, sharp as if the boy had thrown a spear at the king.

"You..." the man's face twisted and ugly, seething with rage, Endymion knew, because rage was easier then grief. So much easier, rage filled you, filled you and let nothing else in. Until you were numb. Numb for eternity.  
"I'll kill you, you who dare to call yourself a king! I will kill you the way you killed me!"

The guards captured him quickly, twisted his hands behind his back, leading him away in cuffs and linked with power. Yet the man's eyes never left Endymion's. The piercing, desperate, disgusted gaze in a defeated face.

"I'll never forgive you." he whispered. Despite himself, the king found that he was following the man's gaze with his eyes, turning his head as the man was taken away.

* * *

"Most of the others in the attacking party have either been captured or fled, my lord." Sailor Uranus made her report in a business-like manner.

Endymion nodded curtly. "They will be tried in the days to come."

Slowly, Sailor Venus walked toward the group, eyes downcast and face set. She motioned toward Megumi's body, being carried away. "They had a bond," she said softly, shaking her head, "he'll never get over it."

There was shifting, heavy silence. Eyes met and then looked away from each other, heads lowered and all were lost in their memories. All but Endymion, it seemed. Violet-black hair fluttered for a moment in the breeze,  
an ironic expression on his perfect features.

"Well, if the trial goes as it will, he won't have to, will he?" Endymion asked, before turning and entering the Crystal Palace.

"That was uncalled for, Venus," Mercury said quietly as she watched Endymion leave.

"What was uncalled for?" she asked, her voice raising and cracking, "I spoke the truth."

Silence.

Venus then exploded, sobs shaking her body, "How can he do this? How can he do this after what happened to-"

Uranus's voice was harsh, "He has to keep the peace somehow. He has to maintain his power! The rebels have to be made examples of."

"*She* would never have-"

"Well, she's not here is she?" Mars demanded, her eyes filling with fury as she turned to her comrade, "She was my best friend! My best friend! But shit happens, ok?"

Silence reigned for a moment at the unusual outburst. Usually the senshi were so cold, so professional. Mars covered her mouth with her hands, feeling as if her tongue were burning from such words. 'One thousand years...  
almost one thousand years and we still can't talk about it, can we?'

* * *

One thousand years. Endymion poured the amber liquid into a cut-class goblet but didn't drink it. For a moment he stood and watched the light bounce off the glass and filter through the brown alcohol. By a rule he wasn't a drinker. By a rule he wasn't much of anything... he knew what the people were saying about him. Intelligent, yes, nearly a genius. But cold.

He couldn't deny it. He had stopped caring, stopped trying. 'You liar. When there was no 'stopping'. When did you ever care? When did you ever try?'

When did it stop mattering? The funeral? When Pluto told him it was now up to him to lead the neo-kingdom? Or was it then... at that moment when he broke down the door to her dressing room, and saw her, sightless eyes  
staring up at him, blood still soaking through the delicate lace of her wedding gown.

The glass hit the wall and shattered, the light reflecting in it exploded, scattered and flew at him. Light cut him, light burned him, but he was lying to himself as he reached out his hands trying to capture it, to keep it, to fill himself with it and he fell the ground. There was no light. Not in his life. Not anymore.

"Your majesty? Sire?" an urgent page stood at his side, suddenly, and the king realized he was standing, and still held the glass in his hand, unbroken and empty.

"Yes?"

"The others seek audience with you."

* * *

Red-rimmed green eyes stared straight ahead, unseeing, burning, swirling with near- madness. The young man sat in jail, in the corner of the cell, arms linked over his knees, unmoving.

A force, a force bred of wanting, desperation, and grief twisted, writhed and formed around in the cell, calling strength from every broken heart, empty home and tear-watered grave. The force pulsed before the man, asking:

'What do you want, Kayden? What is it you seek so badly?'

"Megumi." His mouth formed the word, soundlessly.

'What do you want, Kayden?' it persisted, not receiving the answer it needed.

"Revenge," he murmured again, his eyes widened as the force surged and penetrated and seeped into his eyes, black to green and back again. And he collapsed to the floor of the cell, reaching for the blackness around  
him. It pulsed once and the young man was gone.

The cell was empty.

The sun was setting over Crystal Tokyo.

* * *

The doors to the chamber room opened grandly and Endymion came in, "You asked to speak with me?" he asked.

Uranus bowed. "He wouldn't say, sire, but we have reason to believe the young man's name is Kayden Marks. The leader of this band of rebels and the mind behind most of their plans and previous attacks."

Endymion nodded. "What do you plan to do with this information?"

Before she could answer, a guard came bursting into the doors. Bowing before Endymion and the others, he caught his breath enough to gasp, "Sire... Kayden... he has... escaped."

The room erupted with noise. Uranus caught the man by his collar and rammed him to the wall, "How many guards did you have on him? I thought I ordered high security!"

"Protect the king!" Mars shouted, "He was talking assassination."

"Perhaps he is still in the palace," Mercury said, "I need the link to the main-frame computer for the dungeons perhaps I can-"

Endymion slumped against the wall, putting a hand to his head.

In a flash of light, another figure entered the room.

"Pluto?"

It was not the time for reunions or greetings. "Someone crossed the time corridor." She said simply.

There was a moment of silence before all the senshi began talking at once. "You don't think it could be..."

"A lowly prisoner couldn't just cross the plane of space and time..."

"There was an outside force," Pluto stated, "extremely powerful and invisible to me until it was too late. With that sort of supernatural help, anyone could."

"Do you know when he is?" Uranus demanded.

"I need to be hooked up into the time matrix computer for an estimate." Mercury said, "It'll take a while, though."

Sailor Pluto bit her lip for a moment. "I can give you a ballpark."

Neptune rolled her eyes, "Ballpark like?"

Venus and Jupiter were securing the room, while Saturn quickly adjusted the power settings and lighting the room to allow for the amount of power Mercury's computer would take.

"Between ten and two thousand AD."

"You call *that* a ballpark?" Mars barked, as she motioned to the guards by the door to be wary in case Kato wasn't the one who crossed the barrier.

Mercury hooked up her computer, searching spreadsheet after matrix after compile chart, the numbers flipped by...stopped... "Twentieth century!"

"If he wants Endymion dead what is he doing back then?"

Endymion stared straight ahead at the chaos ensuing in the large room, but not seeing any of it. 'Like you killed me...'

"Late twentieth century!" Mercury cried.

In his mind's eye, Endymion saw the man untying Megumi so gently, dread already on his features. She was limp, not breathing, the spire still cackling with energy... so why did he bother to take a pulse?

_Why had he bothered to take a pulse?_

_She was covered, _covered_ in blood, the crimson liquid already drying across her dress. The pretty blue of _  
_her eyes was faded, glazed, two tears still falling down pale cheeks. So why did he rush to kneel beside her, to check for a heartbeat that would never come again?_

Mercury was scanning the numbers intently, breath catching as a horrible idea began to form in her head.

"Nineteen nineties!"

Endymion buried his face in his hands and memories came and went through his mind like a some sadistic slide show...

Kayden holding Megumi so gently, so close, even though she would never...

_...feel anything again ...blood was everywhere, everywhere..._

'...she can't be...' Kayden whispering

_...she can't be dead, because I love her..._

'You.' the accusatory look in Kayden's haunting green eyes, directed at Endymion. 'I'll kill you like you killed me.'

Killed me.

_She was so light in his arms, silky strands of platinum and __gold falling across her face. She was looking right at him -right at him, __but not seeing. So bloody, not breathing... no pulse._

No pulse.

_There was desperation, panic that faded until he just sat there with her in his arms, silent and subdued, but inside... inside he cringed, he screamed, he went insane...and he died. He just died. Forever._ _'Forgive me, my love, my wife. I lied when I vowed. "Till death do us part," but I will never part with you. Never.' It was his grave, too._

Kayden had said, "I'll kill you like you killed me."

"Nineteen ninety five..." Mercury said, her voice no more then a fervent whisper.

"July, 1995?" Sailor Mars murmured in horror.

King Endymion looked up, "July 1st, 1995." His voice was emotionless but his eyes were wild with the realization they had all had at once.

"Sire..."

But before anyone could react, he had cornered Sailor Pluto and held her against the wall.

"Give me the time key."

"You can't just-"

He pressed her arms harder against the marble. "I can't just what?"

"Mess with the timeline like that-"

Endymion shook her, screaming in an outburst of emotion the senshi hadn't seen from their stone-hearted king since as long as they could remember.

"Damn you! You said yourself it wasn't supposed to happen!"

Pluto was silent for a moment. "Do you believe you can stop him?"

Dark hazel eyes lightened for a moment to violet, intensified and shook. "I have to try."

She pressed the key into his hand, the cold metal shocking his heated skin. He closed his hand around it and stepped back a few feet... frenzied desperation that was buried for nearly a millennium came forth and directed  
him as he commanded the time key to take him to Kayden...and Usagi.

A flash of light. And he was gone.

Mars whispered, "Pluto, what did you do?"

Venus slumped into a nearby chair, pale and with tears streaming down her face. "Who'd have thought? Who knew? Oh, Usagi-chan, we are so, so sorry."

"Do you think he can- do you think he will-" Saturn found she couldn't finish her sentence.

Pluto stood, eyes unseeing but filling with tears. "Neither of them has anything to loose. But Endymion has much to gain."

"An advantage," Uranus said.

"Or a disadvantage. His blind, mad desperation to save Serenity may cloud his mind from thinking clearly," Pluto responded.

"Yeah, well, 1000 years of mourning can do that to a person." Mars muttered bitterly.

Pluto raised her eyes heavenward, whispered softly, "Good luck, my king. For the sake of us all, may you win this battle."

* * *

It was feeling of vertigo, spinning in blackness, stomach dropping and heart skipping as it tried to pump in such weightless space. He could feel the key searching, and no, Endymion was never exactly sure _where_ exactly the  
few people who traveled time were as the decades rolled past them as spokes on a wheel. Outside the binds of space and time? Or directly in the middle, in the darkness inside the ring of endless light, in the untouched, unchanged horror of nonexistence.

Then _slamming _into reality. Endymion stood, shakily, in a dim room, the sunlight from early evening slanting through the windows.

'Who are you and what do you seek?' a darkness asked.

'King Endymion of Earth. I've come to stop a murder.'

It laughed, rippled in amusement. A horrible sound, feeling, sense. 'No, that's not it.' It said, 'So why have you come?'

The darkness didn't expect an answer, obviously, because it swirled from Endymion's sight just leaving the unanswered question in his mind.

Endymion took a moment to look around the room he was in, although he didn't have to. It was imprinted on his memory like a brand, forever fresh, forever burning.

The make-up on the vanity, haphazardly flung aside by her bridesmaids as the wedding march started, the suitcases piled on the floor, packed already for the honeymoon she would never have, the light dress hanging on the door.

The floor to the side of the door where...where she... where they found her at 6:27 p.m. She was still warm. It was one minute or less after the coroner's official time of death.

A clock in the corner read 6:24.

A rustle in the room drew Endymion's attention away from the room itself and to the other occupant of it.

Kayden was poised behind the door, confusion for a moment coloring his face. 'What am I doing here?' he asked, wondering at the knife in his hand.

A darkness gleefully twisted around him in a mockery of an embrace. 'What you want.'

'Megumi!'

'No. Revenge.' And the darkness filled him.

And the door opened.

'NO!' Endymion wanted to scream. 'Turn back, turn back now, please! Stay back. Let me stop him!' But the blackness held him back, held him.

'If you stop Kayden,' it whispered, 'who will you hate?'

It had been centuries since he heard 20th century Japanese, and Endymion didn't try to decipher it. A cheerful female voice said something, and Usagi answered back. Her voice was as unfamiliar as a stranger's. Her face was  
flushed and exhausted but happy, as she rolled her eyes at her friend and shut the door behind her.

She locked it.

Why did she lock it?

To Endymion, she was nothing but a ghost, an apparition of the girl who would in less then two minutes be sprawled on the floor in her own blood.

Whose name would, in one thousand years, be forbidden to be spoken.

Usagi ran her hand over her face, removing her veil and headpiece in one fluid motion. White-blonde-gold waves of hair fell around her face, over her face, blinding her from the attack to come.

She lifted her eyes just then, started almost directly at Endymion, hidden in the shadows. Blue eyes shifted to the side, uneasily. She knew something was wrong.

The darkness merrily swirled to Endymion, in him, around him. 'Look at her. You feel nothing. You don't love her. You don't love her. You never did, did you? You never could. Lonely little orphan boy. What did you know  
of love? You let her die.'

NO! Endymion thought, wildly trying to rid the voice from his mind.

'Of course you did. And you are letting her die, again.' With that the voice disappeared.

At that moment, Kayden grabbed Usagi's arm and the girl screamed until his hand crushed to her mouth and nose and held her.

She struggled, a voice behind the door called to her. Kayden's face twisted in a horrible smile.

The clock read 6:25.

A questioning voice muffled from behind the door. Panicked murmuring, a loud knocking. "Usagi! Usagi-chan! Usagi, open this door."

Running footsteps. Many voices outside the door. Outside time. Outside. "Usagi-chan?" "Usagi!" "Tsukino-san, please!" "Sis!" "Usako!"

The voices were long, drawn out in slow motion. The pounding on the door matched the heartbeat of someone in deep sleep. Outside the little dark room, time moved differently.

_Pound!_

The clock's glowing display flipped to 6:26, slowly.

As if he was moving through water, Kayden raised the knife as Usagi's head bobbed down, her eyes closing as unconsciousness over-took her.

_Pound!_ Voices crying.

Usagi's eyes fluttered closed but- _her eyes weren't closed_. At the memory, Endymion snapped out of his stupor and jumped at the young man before him.

"Stop!" he cried.

The young man looked up, Usagi fell the floor before him, unmoving.

"You!" he said, hatred twisted his features. "You killed Megumi."

Endymion shook his head slowly. "No," he whispered. "You did."

Another pound at the door.

Denial. Pain. "NO! You dirty, lying murderer!" he pointed a shaking finger at the king, green eyes were wild with fear, hate and other, stronger emotion.

"I'm telling the truth," Endymion said, calmly. "By stabbing this girl, you stab your own Megumi, right in the heart."

Challengingly, Kayden raised the knife over Usagi's chest, and tensed his arm for the first blow. "How?" he asked.

Endymion walked slowly forward, and Kayden made him freeze by putting the knife directly on Usagi's throat.

The clock still read 6:26.

"If you love her, you'll stay away." Kayden hissed, pressing the knife harder into Usagi's neck, almost drawing blood.

Endymion blinked for a second.

The other man's eyebrows knitted together. "You do love her, don't you?"

Another pound at the door. It sounded as if it was coming from underwater.

"No." Endymion whispered, his eyes fading to the granite shards they usually resembled. "I can't. I am incapable. It's been so long. Too many years." He fell to his knees with the blow of that discovery.

The knife lifted a bit from Usagi's neck.

"I have forgotten how to love. How to feel anything." The darkness danced in ecstasy at Endymion's words, swirling and swirling.

Kayden and the darkness paused.

This time the door shook with the force of the pounding. They were trying to break it down.

Endymion kept talking. "You went back in time, Marks,_ back in time._Instead of going back to that morning to save Megumi, you came back one thousand years to destroy the soul of a man you never talked to."

"Hate is so much easier than love, isn't it?" the king sighed, eyes not leaving the peaceful face of the girl Kayden held. "That's why you didn't save Megumi. That's why you came after me. You are weak. Just like me. Just like everyone."

Endymion's eyes shifted to the girl who lay on the floor. "Everyone but her."

Kayden frowned.

The door pounded, again, shook on its hinges. A panicked voice cried out to his bride. Chiba Mamoru.

Kayden took a deep breath. Eyes not leaving the king's face. The darkness cried in denial.

Endymion continued, carefully. "And that man out there loves her like you loved Megumi. More, maybe. She is his everything."

Kayden looked confused for a moment, suddenly revealing himself to be nothing but a messed-up, scared little boy. Scared of the truth.

Endymion knew the feeling.

"Do you think," Endymion whispered intensely to the man in front of him, "that he would sentence Megumi to death if he could still feel something inside of him? If his true love ruled at his side?"

Kayden looked at Usagi.

"If the purest, most uncorrupted heart in the world belonged to your Queen, would you even be rebelling in the first place?"

Green eyes narrowed as the king challenged his cause.

"You hate me, Kayden Marks."

A few more seconds and the door would break open. Would Mamoru find Usagi dead, his life over? Would he turn into such a bitter, cold, untouchable man?

"But you created me."

The knife fell.

The clock read 6:27.

* * *

"Damn it! It just won't break!"

"Sir, um, perhaps breaking down the door isn't exactly..."

"Can it, jerk, my friend's in trouble." Rei gave the man a look that made him back down, choking.

"Are you sure it's trouble?" Haruka was whispering to Mamoru. Usagi's parents and brother were concerned at Mamoru's panic, but most people were trying to convince him that Usagi was probably fine, and breaking down the door was a little extreme.

All but those who knew him.

Mamoru gave Haruka a Look.

"Would he be breaking down the door if he didn't sense anything?" Minako asked. "I heard her scream, I swear it!"

Almost there... Mamoru rammed his shoulder against the door again. It shuttered on its hinges.

* * *

As he dropped the knife and made his decision, Kayden faded away, all the while dreaming of Megumi, his eyes closed. Time claimed him.  
Who knew what lay ahead?

The darkness reeled toward the king, embracing him. But for once he didn't embrace it back.

Usagi stirred a little.

For a moment he brushed his hand across Usagi's face.

The touch shocked him, sent sharp nerve pulses through his entire arm.

When had he last touched anyone? When had he last touched her? He felt like a starving man before a feast, like he would over gorge himself and die if he took too much. It had been too long. He was ready to die.

The door made a cracking sound. Voices rose, still in slow motion.

Endymion watched Usagi stir, dusky lashes fluttering for a moment, a lace-covered hand running over her delicate forehead for a second. She didn't open her eyes. She was breathing. Her heart was beating. She was alive.

The door cracked again, almost fell. He lifted Usagi up, slowly, and placed her beside the door, so it wouldn't fall on her, taking such delight from the feeling of her pulse beneath his fingers.

Slowly, Endymion leaned down, brushed his lips against her cheek, once. A jolt ran through him and million dead, dormant, controlling feelings rushed to him. "I loved you," he breathed. So he had felt love. Once. He had forgotten. But now... he was going to die with the joy of it.

Die from the million points of light shattering the darkness. Die from the light engulfing him, consuming him.

The door broke down.

* * *

He watched as her friends and family crowded the entrance way, crying her name in relief. He saw Rei and Minako rush to her side, lift her up and hug her as she slowly came to. He saw himself, so much younger, black-haired  
blue-eyed and dressed as he was on his wedding day, rush to their side. He watched as Usagi put a confused hand to her head, shaking it, and Rei scanned the room for evil.

He drifted away as Minako made a quick joke and pushed Usagi toward Mamoru so he caught her, and Endymion watched as they held each other tightly.

The light took him as he saw the laughter in the eyes of those around her, and saw her smile, her blue eyes alive and bright and seeing and loving.

Light.

Sheering, blinding, white, white light.

* * *

It was light that killed the darkness, and it was light that killed Endymion.

Dying with the darkness that had consumed him for so, so long, it was light that shone in his eyes. Light that woke him up, in a morning in Crystal Tokyo. Peaceful and warm.

Shaking his head, he let the confused thoughts and feelings drain from him with the familiar sounds of activity elsewhere in the palace, the birds singing from the trees, and Serenity breathing as she slept beside him.

The darkness stirred, and danced in its shadowy balance with light.


End file.
